Ukrainian drama project Screaming Girl has scooped the top prize at the Berlinale Co-Production Market.
The feature won the Eurimages Co-Production Development Award, worth €20,000, which went to Kyiv-based producers Forefilms.
Director Antonio Lukich is known for comedy-drama Luxembourg, Luxembourg, which screened in the Horizons strand of the Venice Film Festival in 2022. His debut was My Thoughts Are Silent, which won a special jury prize at Karlovy Vary in 2019.
Screaming Girl centres on a girl who, after the invasion of Ukraine, finds herself in Ireland and pursues her dream of becoming an actress. However, she begins to experience strange and fantastical events that disrupt her life, prompting her to rebuild it from scratch.
It marks the second consecutive year that the Co-Production Market has supported a Ukrainian project, after Ruslan Batytskyi’s The Blindsight received €20,000 in 2023.
A further two cash awards and one in-kind prize was awarded to feature film projects at the market on Sunday (February 18).
The VFF Talent Highlight Award of €10,000 - promoting one promising project from the Talent Project Market – went to Silence Sometimes, an animated film that will mark the feature directorial debut of Alvaro Robles. It was pitched by US-based Spanish producer Mireia Vilanova. The story follows a woman with a strange condition – everything she touches becomes unable to produce sound – whose world changes when she meets a talented musician.
Nominee awards of €1,000 each went to the producer/director Assel Aushakimova of Kazakhstan’s Risk Pictures from and the producer Liselotte Persson from Sweden’s Snowcloud.
This year’s ARTEKino International Award went to Ich bin Marika by Hajni Kis, produced by Hungary’s Proton Cinema. This €6,000 award is presented to an “artistically outstanding project” from the co-pro market, which runs February 17-21.
For the second time, in-kind prize the World Cinema Fund Audience Strategies Award was given to a project from a WCF-supported country. It was awarded to producers from Germany’s Seera Films and director Fradique, who will receive extensive consultations on optimising the audience and communication strategies for their film project, Hold Time for Me.
At the 21st Berlinale Co-Production Market, the producers of 34 selected feature film projects met co-producers and financiers. More than 1,500 individual meetings with potential partners among the total of over 600 participants were planned and coordinated in advance.
More than 370 films and 22 series that have sought partners at the market in recent years have now been completed.
Five titles from previous editions play at this year’s Berlinale: My Favourite Cake by Maryam Moghaddam and Behtash Sanaeeha in Competition; Arcadia by Yorgos Zois in Encounters; My Summer With Irène by Carlo Sironi; Who By Fire by Philippe Lesage in Generation; and Oasis Of Now by Chee Sum Chia in Forum.
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